The disclosure of Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-113870 filed on Apr. 16, 2002 including the specification, drawings and abstract is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus and more particularly to a vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus capable of recognizing not only a solid object including a preceding vehicle in front of an own vehicle but also a solid object located in neighboring lanes. Further, the present invention relates to a vehicle traveling control system incorporating the vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus.
2. Discussion of Related Art
In recent years, such a traveling control apparatus as detecting a preceding vehicle by monitoring cameras mounted on a vehicle and making a control to follow up the preceding vehicle or to keep an intervehicle distance between the own vehicle and the preceding vehicle constant, has been put into practical use.
In the traveling control apparatus, it is preferable not only to detect a solid object located on the lane where the own vehicle travels but also to detect a solid object located in adjacent left and right lanes in order to make a proper estimation control.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Toku-Kai-Hei 6-213659 discloses a technology in which left and right lane markers of a lane on which the own vehicle travels are detected and not only a solid object on the lane of the own vehicle but also a solid object on the neighboring lanes are detected based on the detected lane markers.
However, the aforesaid prior technology is formed on the premise that the left and right lane markers of the lane on which the own vehicle travels are detected. Therefore, in case where the lane markers of the own vehicle are not detected, there is a problem that solid objects ahead can not be identified. That is, there are various lanes such as a lane having left and right lane markers, a lane having a lane marker only on either of left and right sides, and a lane having no lane marker on either of left and right sides. Further, sometimes the lane markers are obstructed by a solid object and the like and sometimes it is difficult to recognize the lane markers depending upon the weather conditions or the shadow condition. Hence, the aforesaid prior art has a very limited scope of application.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus capable of properly identifying a solid object ahead under a variety of conditions, irrespective of whether or not a lane marker exists on a road or the lane marker can be detected. It is another object of the present invention to provide a multi-purpose vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus capable of making an accurate traveling control based on the estimated change of the traveling circumstances. It is further object of the present invention to provide a vehicle traveling control system equipped with the vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus.
In order to achieve the objects, the vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus comprises traveling condition detecting means for detecting a traveling condition of an own vehicle, front information detecting means for detecting front information of at least data of a solid object, data of a side wall and data of a lane marker, lane marker position establishing means for estimating a traveling path of the own vehicle according to at least either of the front information and the traveling condition of the own vehicle and for establishing a position of the lane marker in the traveling path of the own vehicle, solid object and side wall position establishing means for establishing a position of the solid object and a position of the side wall in terms of the position of the lane marker, own vehicle traveling trace detecting means for detecting a traveling trace of the own vehicle, preceding vehicle extracting means for extracting a preceding vehicle traveling ahead of the own vehicle and preceding vehicle traveling trace detecting means for detecting a traveling trace of the preceding vehicle. Further, the vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus outputs information of about the preceding vehicle to a traveling control unit for controlling a traveling of the own vehicle.